I'm Australian and our company uses cloud models for some of our business - as per my other post - it would be crazy for an Australian company to host in USA. It isn't the latency ... that just sets an initial response delay. A lot of ppls in the "outback" have broadband via satellite ... database access assured but don't try and play quake :)

Data retention, security, availability and backup are what we need. My ideal then is an Australian hosting company with exemplary credentials. We have that!.

The USA has introduced laws and policies that withhold legitimate data from its owners. Even if costs were 50% ,given current US policy (we own EVERYTHING attitude), I don't think I can justify a business case that allows the hosting to be there. Megauploads serves as a perfect example.

"A Cloud" is data in the sky stored as quantum manipulated crystal droplets that occasionally crash with resultant wettening of everything, loud noises, and lotsa electricity we really didn't want or have facility to store right now.

No Australian organisation with a CIO worth a crust would set up with hosting offshore. We have world class local hosting.

The USA media demigods prolly claiming all rights to Waltzing Matilda and Advance Australia Fair

As an Australian, I think in general we do not hate the USA. If it wasn't for them in WWII we would be eating sushi right now and paying rent to a japanese landlord. Oh wait ... I am ... Oh well, the sushi is awesome and the place ain't bad. Seriously ... as Australians we owe a lot to the USA for the defense of this country in WWII. Never forgetting the gift of McDonalds, pizza hut, Dominoes, KFC, Burger King, Subway ... without which I would not eat.

Something fishy about this. "Fitted with resistors to stop it heating up". Is that a joke? As I remember, resistors are about turning unwanted current flow into heat. Also - from the article, the way I interpret it, it seems it takes tens of seconds of exposure to kill the bacteria.

My thoughts on his statement "And there are some things we will not stand having done to our network" ... is black webs ... is there anyway to combat a web of organised file sharers? I remember the early days of Quake lans etc ... 1997-1998 ... we spent more bandwidth through the router file copying than we did playing the game. It's just expanded globally a little.

What did Alexander Graham bell invent after the telephone ...... the other telephone .......

I am not even going to read the article. It is silly. Want to set up, let say a "clandestine" encrypted network .... easy .... use your iphone thingy and get the "clandestine mexican drug cartel encrypted network app".

I have a freerunner GTA-02 and use it as a daily phone. I have qtmoko V19 in NAND as the stable platform and qtmoko V35 as experimental on SD. I will be buying a GTA-04 board in the new year.

In Australia, this would require a separate court action. It might yet occur.

Why isn't the Apollo 1 fire counted? Whether or not they made it into space, they died during the process of getting there.

Thinking here : Is Canonical approaching an "Ubuntu Market" concept. I can't see why not. Free software (read FREE as in GNU) + any mix of non-free apps. Canonical is already playing with a cloud computing "user space" - how might this evolve and come into play over time. Canonical has a small revenue stream compared to user-base so attaching a user-base in the tablet/smartphone market might just be the catalyst to push the company forward into much higher revenue streams. I think good move for Canonical as a company myself - not unexpected.

to mods : well I thought it was funny

I think you mean "confidant" not cosmonaut